Hard disk space - problem

Question

I have a dell XPS 410 with 2GB RAM, 320 GM Drive ( 10 GB Restore partition and the balance of the drive available). I have had the computer for a month and everything is working great. However, I noticed that when I look at my computer and the OS drive I have 53GB used (288 available and 234 free).   I don't have this much used space on the drive. I have have tried disk cleanup, defragment the drive and check disk; no issues. When use explorer and navigate to the root of C:, select all and properties it reports I have 16.9 GB used. Can anyone help me explain the difference?   FYI - one of my fiends has a new computer with VISTA and has the same problem (that is how I noticed my issue). I am assuming that this is a VISTA bug.   Thank you,   Rob

stangdaddy · Answer

Hey Bro,  Wow! 320 G Hard drive? That's huge. Does your partner have the same size HD? I don't know that hard drive has anything to do with it honestly, but it could have an affect. Also, do you have alot of programs loaded you don't use/need that you can uninstall? That helps too. Took stuff off mine just to keep it basic. Just the stuff that I use.  Don't know that any of this helps, but it's interesting. Rob.

GioAguilar · Answer

I think this is because of the System Restore files, go to CMD and run it as administrator and type
vssadmin list shadowstorage

and you will see the space you're using for the files that bellow to the System Restore.

If you want to rezise
Vssadmin Resize Shadowstorage /For=C: /on=C: /MaxSize=

Vssadmin Resize Shadowstorage /For=C: /on=C: /MaxSize=3

Darrel112 · Answer

Stangdaddy has a point. The larger the hard drive partition, the less you get from it. If you break it down to several partitions I think you may notice less space being used.

Macrobb99 · Answer

GioAguilar,   You were right on the money. It was my system restore that used up 36GB. My next question is, what is the right size for system restore?   Thank you for your insight.   Rob

GioAguilar · Answer

Probably you have a lot of space because you have a big HDD... Because this time Windows makes a really big restore point, also makes previus version for your files... Things like that... So will be depending how many space you really think need for that... I seted for no more than 8 Gb, and just because I really don't use it. Rarely I use it, so I don't need to save restore points with more than 20 days or so... I'm not really sure how it works, but I asume newest restore points  delete older. so if you reach the limit (8Gb in my case) newer restore points will delete maybe the last restore point...     By the way, sorry for the delayed response...

Windows General

Hard disk space - problem

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